If conservatives want to help the poor they should improve education, cut inequality, and ensure access to contraception.
The Guardian (Comment is free), By Jill Filipovic, January 30
It’s time for marriage promotion programs to die.
The first problem is that they don’t actually convince people to get married; nor do they get fathers to spend more time with their children, make children more emotionally secure, encourage parents to stay together or make families more financially stable. The second is that, contrary to right-wing narratives, marriage doesn’t fix poverty – yet those same conservatives demand that the federal government continue to funnel money into failed marriage promotion programs, and even encourage politicians to curb reproductive rights to force couples into marrying. It’s bad policy stacked on bad policy, with women and their children being made the primary victims.
It is true that a stable, two-parent household can be a great place in which to raise a child. Two incomes tend to be better than one, and two people equally invested in a child’s well-being mean double the bodies to take a kid to doctor’s appointments or soccer practice, and double the people who can play, read bedtime stories and really listen to problems. Children in two-parent families (especially with the two biological parents) tend to do better in school and are less likely to live below the poverty line (pdf). So you can see where so many people draw the conclusion that promoting marriage will help to alleviate poverty and protect children.
But here’s the rub: stable marriages – the kind that are most likely to produce successful, socially mobile, healthy children – are disproportionately available to people who are already financially stable and well-educated. Those people are likely to marry later in life, when communication and relationship skills are well-honed, and they’re less likely to experience the kind of profound economic stress that helps to end marriages in lower economic brackets.
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